Romania's Intelligence Service, the SRI, said on Monday it had identified a sabotage network coordinated by Russia, which it believed was responsible for a fire in September at an industrial site in central Romania near a state-owned weapons company, Reuters reported from Bucharest.

Source: Reuters

Romanian reporting based on the SRI and prosecutors gave the precise site: the 14 September fire on the Carfil industrial platform in Brasov, beside Carfil SA, a subsidiary of the state arms company Romarm. The prosecutors' directorate for organised crime and terrorism, DIICOT, has opened criminal proceedings against three foreign nationals resident in EU states — two Belarusians and a Ukrainian — for attempted acts of diversion, the Romanian offence covering sabotage.

Source: SRI / DIICOT via AGERPRES, summarised by Grosswald Signal

Romanian organised-crime prosecutors said they were seeking the extradition of the two Belarusian suspects apprehended in Germany and the Ukrainian detained in Poland, Reuters reported. Judges at the Bucharest Court of Appeal issued European arrest warrants in absentia; the two accused in Germany were remanded in custody while, DIICOT says, they were preparing to commit similar acts, and a warrant for the third, located in Poland, was issued on Monday, according to the Romanian reporting.

Source: Reuters / DIICOT via Grosswald Signal

The Intelligence Service said all three were part of the network coordinated by Russia, whose coordinators had assigned it targets including “state and private weapons production facilities, as well as other objectives of military and industrial interest”, Reuters reported. The SRI placed the case in a wider campaign, saying investigations this year had found other attempts against targets in Romania, including international military facilities and facilities used to train Ukrainian forces, the Romanian reporting said.

Source: Reuters / SRI via Grosswald Signal

Romania, an EU and NATO member, shares a land border of more than 600 km (370 miles) with Ukraine, and President Nicusor Dan has said it is the target of a hybrid war waged by Russia to destabilise nations that support Kyiv — ranging, he has said, from drone incursions into Romanian airspace to cyberattacks, disinformation, sabotage and attacks on cargo vessels near Romanian waters, Reuters reported. A year ago, Poland and Romania detained eight people suspected of involvement in a Russian plan to send exploding parcels to Ukraine.

Source: Reuters

Dan accused Russia this month of escalating its attacks on NATO's eastern flank after a series of drone strikes on cargo vessels in the Black Sea; at least eight cargo ships have been hit off the coast of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria in the past three weeks, with some 34 sailors reported dead or missing, Reuters reported. Russia's embassy in Bucharest could not immediately be reached for comment outside business hours, but Moscow has repeatedly denied such accusations — the sabotage-network finding is Romania's allegation, presented by its intelligence service and prosecutors, not an independently verified conclusion.

Source: Reuters